


Insanity Defense

by Dlanor A Knox (KawaiiFiveO)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Everyone Is Gay, Existential Angst, F/F, Fantasy, Female Protagonist, Historical, Metafiction, Parody, Siblings, Slavery, War Crimes, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 19:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30077271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KawaiiFiveO/pseuds/Dlanor%20A%20Knox
Summary: I couldn't see them, but I knew I was always being watched."Eh? How dare they try to make money off of my life story?"They called me a villainess, so why do they want to keep reading about me?"So that's the role that they want me to play. It doesn't even matter if I redeem myself or not..."If that's the nature of the world I exist in..."Author, watch out. Your series ratings are done for!"For the sake of getting her private and peaceful existence back, the Villainess will wage war upon the gods.
Kudos: 3





	Insanity Defense

I don’t remember when it was that I first realized that something was strange about the world I lived in. Up until now, I had always followed the role that had been given to me.

I always got forced into political drama. No matter what I did, one way or another, it would happen. Seriously, it was so annoying. A life confined within these palace walls, following the whims of my parents and those above me… I wished that there were more to my life than this. I couldn’t deal with nobility anymore.

One night, I began to have a recurring dream.

It hasn’t been unheard of for rare people to have the ability to see the future in visions that appear to them. They were considered prophets who were revered within this world.

I don’t think that I’m one of those prophets. However, in this recurring dream of mine, the world was consistent. At first, upon realizing where I was, I’d wake up from the shock, or it would be wiped away and replaced with a different dream. As these specific dreams continued, though, they got clearer and clearer until that world felt just as real as my own.

Let me tell you about it.

I know for a fact that this is a world of the future. People wear strange clothes, live in very high buildings with many floors, and travel around using self-propelled vehicles. I know of steam engines, which are still considered an experimental technology, and these vehicles appear to be a very advanced version of that.

I had a limited ability to interact with this world. It was like being a ghost. I didn’t really have a sense of my own body, either. Every time I looked in a mirror, I was different. People wouldn’t acknowledge my presence, and I’d pass right through them if I tried bumping into them. I wished just one of them would talk to me, but all I could do was listen.

I could interact with objects. Every single time I found a book, I’d immediately pick it up and skim through it. This language was strange, but I found that I could read it. As time went on, and my memories of my dreams also remained clear after waking up, I was able to reproduce it in my own handwriting. However, when I showed the writing to others, nobody could figure out what language it was from.

There were still a lot of words that I couldn’t understand. And every time I woke up, I would end up in a different location. One night, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a library.

I immediately found a dictionary and memorized as much of it as I could before I woke up. At most, I would have a couple hours at a time in this world during each dream.

I spent as much of my free time sleeping as possible. My servants and maids gave alibis for me as I slept. Problems continued to spring up during my waking moments. I dealt with them as best as I could. An occasional assassination attempt. A tea party. A ball or other event that would always have a dramatic incident for some reason. I don’t know anyone else who has to put up with even half this shit.

“May you be cursed with an interesting life,” as they would say. I have no interest in that, so just leave me alone.

Months went by, and I finally discovered the Internet. It was like an online library of sorts, that could be accessed by a device called a phone or computer. I took one of those phones for myself and tried using it, but I couldn’t figure it out. It was so alien to me.

There’s no way that this world could be a delusion created within my own head, right…? This felt like something far greater than that. It was certainly another real world, with real people. Whether it was the future of my own world or another one, I could not tell. I decided to keep it a secret, lest they ship me off to the crazy house.

* * *

One dream, as I sat next to a bunch of students who were eating lunch, I swore that I heard my own name. It was a very unusual name, foreign to this world, you could say. (Of course, the names of everyone here were weird to me.)

“I love her so much! The new chapter is gonna come out today. You think we’ll get to see the male lead?” The girl held up her phone.

On it was a picture of the current third prince of my own country. He was drawn in an odd style, but I could definitely tell him from his outfit. I ran over and grabbed her phone from her, but she didn’t notice. I looked down at my own hands.

I was still holding her phone, and she was still holding her phone. Another one? I suppose objects can duplicate themselves in odd cases like this one. It’s a dream, so nothing really needs to make sense, right?

The phone had what appeared to be a story on it, told in drawings instead of words. The characters were familiar. That’s my brother isn’t it, and my mom, and… ahh, that’s me, wait, why am I in this story?!

As I flipped through the pages, the events matched up with the life that I had lived so far. It even showed outside events that I had no way of knowing about. People that I hadn’t met. This was new information… is this really a prophecy?

I immediately had to confirm it for myself when I woke up. And sure enough, all that info was certainly true. These were not normal dreams. What should I do? Use it against my enemies? Become the next empress of this kingdom?

No. I had to keep reading. Why is there a story about me?! Every time I woke up, I took notes down about the story.

In the story, I’m a villainess, and a protagonist. How can somebody be both a villain and a protagonist? What an odd author. Apparently, people on the Internet really liked me. The story had high ratings. The title was oddly verbose.

* * *

**Title:** I’ll Make You an Emperor in This Life

**Rating:** 8.29/10

**Demographic:** Josei

**Genre:** Drama, Psychological, Fantasy, Romance, Tragedy

**Theme:** Supernatural, Villainess

**Description:** “The third prince is so cute!”

Before I met him, I felt no sense of purpose in my life.

I’ll definitely get him to notice me. I’ll marry him and make him into the leader of this kingdom.

“You’re the only one in this world for me. You deserve to rule the world.”

And so, the woman resolved to become a villainess for the sake of her loved one.

**Note:** This comic is officially serialized.

**Promotion:** You can now purchase plushies of the female lead!

* * *

Love the FL’s design! Can’t wait to see what happens next!

doesn’t look like an isekai

Castle-nim appears again lol

ML isn’t trash for once? Wow

it’s R-15 so you know…

horny jail for everyone in this thread  ⛓ 

* * *

That’s my real life that you’re talking about! Dumbass! This author… your magic system sucks, too! Do you have any clue who you’re messing with?

I don’t know if they control the story, or the story is something that they write about… wait, could they be having dreams about my own world, just like my own?

If you’re here, spying on me every day in my bedroom… I’ll never forgive you!

I didn’t know if my life was scripted. Was it really true that every single unlucky event that occurred to me was just for the viewing pleasure of the audience, and I was no more than a game piece? My fate was to live only to make someone else a king.

When I discovered this, I wanted to die. Maybe then I’d be reincarnated in this other world, and people would talk to me instead of gawking at me like an animal in a zoo. You could say it was a blessing from above that I was a fictional character who was given a soul, but it was nothing romantic like that. It was an existential nightmare.

Every second of my private life being broadcast to the world was something that I absolutely couldn’t accept. At this point, nearly a year had passed since I had first started having these visions. And there was no way for me to stop them. I was now being tormented every single night, always seeing what was out of my reach, always powerless, always being watched.

I decided to take things into my own hands. At first, I started by experimenting with my own free will. I’d take some actions and then read about them later that night when I had the dream. It was difficult, because the story would skip over a lot of mundane parts of my own life. It made sense that they wouldn’t want to write about that stuff. However, that meant that I had to cause major events for them to be important enough to appear in the story. They couldn’t change what I said, but they could omit it entirely. I even tried saying “fuck,” but they only let me say it once. In every subsequent sentence, it had mysteriously disappeared.

Over the next year, using the information that I had obtained, I schemed my way into becoming a high-ranking military strategist. I studied modern tactics taken from the history books every night. With my newfound power, I would carry out the most irredeemable war crimes, all from the comfort of my own office. I signed away orders with no regard or care for human life. Opposing factions fell, and new lands were claimed under the name of our kingdom.

As for the prince that I was supposed to meet? He stopped showing up. Not just within the story, but in my own life. I guess it was too much for him to take. Whenever I asked about his whereabouts, he was always off traveling somewhere far away. And at the rate I was going, people believed that I could become Empress myself without even needing to marry.

I acted as though those thousands of deaths were nothing more than a statistic. They were just background characters in a story. I would become a truly atrocious villain. Of course, I knew that what I was doing was wrong. If I met them for myself, then they would have been actual people. However, I also knew that if I wasn’t the one who did it, then someone else would have taken my place. In fact, it was likely that the male lead himself would have committed these crimes. That was just the nature of this hellish story that I found myself trapped in.

Unfortunately, this didn’t quite have the desired effect. The story did faithfully follow the actions I carried out, but… the ratings went up?

* * *

more scheming FLs please!

I love how she’s an actual villainess, not like most of them

thought we would get to see ML soon but this is better

* * *

People are really weird. You’re into war crimes now? If I had given up my evil ways and redeemed myself by doing good deeds, would it have gone differently…?

The people of my own world certainly wouldn’t remember me as a hero. I’d be an insane tyrant, if anything, but most of them would never even know my name.

Did they want me to kill a person with my bare hands or something? I was reminded of a line that someone had once said about being able to shoot a person in the middle of a crowded street and lose absolutely zero supporters. I decided against it.

I swiftly resigned from that position, to the protests of my own parents and comrades, and resolved to take my story in a different direction. And it had become clear at this point that I would need the help of others to do it.

* * *

I decided to enlist the help of my personal maid, who was like my best friend at this point. I decided to communicate to her through notes, keeping them spaced far enough apart as to not raise suspicion. If the author decided that this was some kind of major plot that I was planning, it would likely appear in the story and my plan would be ruined.

I couldn’t tell her my whole story yet, but I requested that she follow my plan for political reasons, and to keep it a secret. Basically, we would pretend to be lovers, and act as such in private. There was no arranged marriage drama in my life at this point, though readers suspected that there might be. We would then leak this information to others and create a scandal about me having an affair with my own servant. A juicy bit of drama like that would surely destroy my own reputation, and many would likely be outraged. But I didn’t care about them, because it was not them that I was going against.

“The stars are so pretty tonight.”

The two of us were, of course, the only ones present in the gardens at this hour. I squeezed her hand.

“But you’re the brightest star that I can see around here.”

I yawned as I gave the cheesiest lines that I could think of.

The constellations do look similar to the ones in the other world… I guess it was unlikely for the two to be in entirely different parts of the galaxy.

The same planet, then, in different time periods? Or another planet at the exact same time right now? My mind wandered off.

The story advanced. We began to flirt constantly. It became obvious to others. Most of them kept quiet.

But the ratings went up. I was now above a 9. What the hell? This is a romance between a noble and a servant. And she’s a woman. Aren’t you upset at this strange turn of events, or the power imbalance?

* * *

didn’t think we would get yuri route but it’s happening!

Come on we all know author is just baiting…

omg FL and maid are so cute together I want to see more of them!!

Didn’t expect romance but pleasantly surprised tbh

don’t think it’s a bait because no ML this time

* * *

Fine. I see how it is. Well, the higher they are, the harder they fall.

I adjusted my plans and decided to pull my own brother, who was a knight in our army, into the scheme as well. At this point, I had made a breakthrough discovery: Because of the rating of the story, it was, of course, forbidden to show any scenes where I was naked. I spent as much time as possible without my clothes, writing my notes in the bath or in the privacy of my own room. The more time they had to cut, the better – it would force them to write about the plot that I was showing them, because the story had to continue. I avoided other interesting events as much as possible and dodged all invitations sent to me.

Our actions were now scripted by the week. A new chapter would be released each week, and I’d write the plan for the next week based on what had happened in the story. I planned out a fake love confession with my friend. After that, we would get into a fight and then pretend to break up with each other. This was certainly a long con, but I was certain that we could pull it off.

We were all caught up in this insane plan together… and there was no backing out now.

* * *

WTF they actually broke up?

anyone have novel spoilers

wow that’s the hardest we’ve ever gotten baited, confession and all

who’s the ML or is there no romance?

* * *

Fantastic! The ratings were dropping rapidly and I was back below an 8. Apparently, there were many readers that liked the relationship between us so much that they stopped reading. It turns out that I’m not entirely powerless after all.

My brother would become yet another actor in this epic burning dumpster fire of a play that I had meticulously been working on. He was already very loyal to me, even before knowing my reasons. And one day, I hit a lucky break.

The three of us – my pretend lover, my brother and myself – had all passed out in my own office one night from exhaustion. We had been up late, working.

“What the hell? What is this place?”

We were all sitting around a table in a modern coffee shop. Someone… was able to talk to me?

“This… it’s my dream! The prophecy I told you about! Hang on, okay, first off, when you two wake up, talk to me right away, okay?!” My heart was about to burst. I must have looked crazy, talking to delusions within a dream, but if my guess was right, then they were actually here, and they should remember this conversation.

I stole a phone from someone else and quickly pulled up the story.

“See? That’s us right there. Someone or something from above… is watching us. Everything that happens to us has already been planned.”

I tried to explain, as they attempted to calm me down from my frenzied state, but then… I woke up, all too soon.

“You remember, right?! Tell me you saw it!” I nearly screamed to my friend as I stumbled towards her in the dark.

“I… I do! I remember! I thought it was just a dream, but…”

“I was there too! That – that’s impossible, there’s no way it could, we’re not, none of us are prophets, but I don’t know what’s going on…”

“Wait. Stop! We can’t talk yet! One of us has to undress… You understand, right…?”

I might have been crazy, but I also wasn’t wrong.

It turned out that if someone fell asleep close enough to me while I was also asleep, there was a chance that they were able to experience my vision. Those two were also main characters in the story, so I assumed their high affinity to me was related to that. From that night on, we planned naps together as often as possible without arousing suspicion and discussed within that world. Sometimes, not all of us would make it there. Over weeks, I explained to them everything that I had learned about this other world.

They came to realize the nature of their existence as well. They were upset. And they resolved to follow me until the end.

This next act would go down much like the first one did.

* * *

getting weird vibes from the brother lol

he’s not the ML right?

novel spoilers? T_T

yo if they’re really gonna end up together I’m gonna drop

* * *

My brother and I “fell in love,” and all signs pointed towards us having a forbidden relationship together and a secret marriage. We hit as many stupid story cliches as possible and leaked all the details via other co-conspirators. Meanwhile, my maid pretended to be heartbroken the entire time.

“Shut up and kiss me.”

“No, we can’t. We’ll get caught! Someone’s coming!”

My “former lover” was walking down the corridor, right at the specified time.

I pulled my fake fiancé around the corner, forcefully kissed him, and pulled the both of us into a nearby bathroom before locking the door.

“Okay, we’re safe.” I leaned against the wall and slumped down onto the floor.

“Fuck! I know you’re a good actor but warn me first before you…!” He had his head in the bathtub and was busy trying to wash out his own mouth.

“Sorry! I didn’t know. It was your first time?” I really was sorry about it.

“I… no, of course not! It wasn’t my first, so don’t worry. Wait, my FIRST TIME WITH A GIRL, AND IT’S YOU?! I didn’t even want to kiss a girl! And if I wanted to, you made sure that I never would again!” He sounded like he was nearly crying.

Oops. I traumatized my own brother.

Well, doing something like that must be difficult, even if you’re just pretending, but we were now fighting with the very concept of our own existences on the line.

This was a story about humans trying to take down intangible gods. Even if they were a mere writer and artist in the other world, they had no form that I could touch, and they could release this story to millions at once like some sort of divine message. Deadly events occurred to me at their every whim. I felt no regrets for what I did.

* * *

ok dropping this now this is just straight-up incest

ew wtf? author-nim is smoking something crazy

y’all are weird lol kakao allows this shit?

Hey there’s even a drama post about this now

chill out, not incest yet, they’re probably not related or something, don’t worry

UHHHH THEY’RE DEFINITELY RELATED DUDE COME ON???

* * *

Perfect. That was certainly something disgusting enough to make them run.

My kamikaze campaign continued as the ratings dropped to a 7, and then approached 6. I continued by stabbing my allies in the back. Within the palace, I had become an irresponsible nuisance. Those above me ignored me, resigned to the fact that I was no longer the promising successor that they thought I was. Those below me were rightfully upset.

I became a doormat, who apologized to those that I had never wronged in the first place. I even “forgave” those who abused me. I’d do this for a while, and then go back to my old ways.

I bought slaves, who also became accomplices. They were grateful to me for saving them and would do anything asked of them without question. I would “abuse” a few of them, pretend to flirt with and romance another one, and generally keep people guessing.

“If you do just as I say, I’ll give you a nice reward.”

“Yes, Master.”

* * *

so they’re just going with the slavery okay route now? is that it?

cheating on your own brother lmao

what is this shit? author has to be pulling an endless eight

uhhh is the slave the ML? he’s just gonna end up with his abuser?

Slavery, war crimes, incest, what more could you ask for?

FL kinda hilarious though I’m just hate-reading at this point

* * *

I’ll burn it all down to the ground! Even if I’m never reborn in your shitty world, even if I end up exiled… that’s my own decision to make. Don’t pull me into your money-making schemes. Gaining your fame by exploiting my own tragedies, aren’t you the real villainess here, playing with others’ lives like that? I’m not just some character, a game piece to be played around with and then put into the box after the story ends.

“I know you’re watching me!” I’d say out loud to nobody in particular. “You’re a real sicko, you know that? Perving on someone in their own bedroom?” I didn’t know if they could actually hear me, but it made me feel a little better.

I won’t be the one locked in here by you. I’ll be the one to trap you in a corner.

We were now in the endgame. I enlisted the help of a neighboring country’s Crown Prince. His job was simple. Verbally abuse me, emotionally neglect me, and generally be a total dick as I pretended to fall for him and win over his favor. I bribed him with money to keep it a secret.

He wasn’t a character who had appeared previously in the story, which meant that he was new and needed to be introduced. I made up a fake backstory about him and made sure to give it to all my accomplices. Once they had accepted it as “truth,” it would become the truth written in the story. As a result, he committed all kinds of (fake) atrocious war crimes as well.

“You belong to me, and only me. Remember that.”

He held the dagger to my throat as my body shook against my own will. (Because, in fact, I was trying very hard not to laugh.)

“I… of course! I’m sorry! I promise I won’t forget!” Fake tears.

(Badump, badump.)

* * *

is this a harem ending or some shit

lol don’t spend your coins on this trash, just leave now

there’s no way this guy is endgame, second lead at best right?

can’t believe they betrayed us this hard

It started so well, what the hell happened???

* * *

The years went by. The arcs passed one after the other.

“What happens if the world really does come to an end? Once they stop writing, I mean.”

My brother was scared. It was a reasonable fear, though. I hadn’t thought about it because even death was a preferable outcome to me than living out my predetermined fate.

Would we be free afterwards? Or would everything be wiped away?

“I don’t know. But even if we didn’t change anything, the story would have to end eventually.”

I was just giving it a different ending than the one they originally planned.

“If we die, then at least it will be on our own terms. After all… we’re just fictional constructs.”

* * *

The ratings hit new lows. From a 6, to a 5. I inched ever closer to my goal until one day, it finally came.

* * *

* * *

The moment we read that announcement, we cried in relief as we hugged each other. We took a walk, saying goodbye to everything and everyone that we had seen.

“I’ll miss it, you know. Even if this world is strange and hard to understand… it was still an escape from our own.”

“It’s not the fault of anyone here. Only the ones who trapped us.”

When we woke up, we talked all night long about everything that had happened.

The next night, we didn’t dream about that world anymore. That made sense; I was the one who intentionally broke that only connection between the two worlds. Those visions were like a curse that had finally been lifted.

I set the slaves free and disbanded everyone else who had been part of my plan.

In the end, though I had ended up truly becoming the trash of the royal family in their eyes and to the public, I had also gained quite the amount of secret loyal followers.

I faked my own death, with a cover story about how I had gotten drunk and fallen off of a boat in an accident, and moved overseas into a small house in the countryside.

I was truly a villain who had lost everything. My money, my rank, and my reputation. But I think that in the end, I still won.

I had my peaceful everyday life in a faraway land.

I lost my responsibilities and my shitty family.

And as for my maid… She was no longer my maid, but I had certainly gained an amazing wife.

* * *

**Epilogue**

The three of them watched the message bottle drift away down the river.

“You’re an idiot. You wrote down that you married both your maid and your own brother at the same time?”

“Yeah. The poor sap that finds it will be really confused. They’ll go ‘Wow, she's definitely insane!’ and forget about the story, instead of going to look for me or something weird. Other than that, though, it’s all the truth.”

“You're so good at avoiding these flags. Well, that’s why I love you.”

“I don’t care if anyone remembers me. I didn’t even write our names.”

They turned around and set off to return home.


End file.
